i don’t believe in divinity. this much you should know, not just because you always know, but because i often laugh about sunday school and how quick the gospels became cyclical and dull.
but, if you will forgive my hypocrisy, i had a moment today when i did believe in something somewhat otherworldly.
it was late afternoon, and your hands were shaking from the little rest you allow; from mixed blessings and turns of silence.
in concern i reached across the table to hold your shaking hand in mine, and, as i did, a light—from your screen or from the ceiling—caught my eye, and then caught yours, and i fell in.
what i am saying is, i’ve been here before, i’ve had my fits of faith, but never so well-phrased, so evangelical:
and it will fade ever impermanent, and it will return, and i will fall again, into that pool of delicate waves: the lightlike water.
Wilder Voice’s inaugural Extramural Affairs piece, a hypertext poem.
Oberlin is a literary community unto itself. But we exist in a larger constellation of collegiate authors, editors, and publications; Wilder Voice’s new “Extramural Affairs” series is intended to cultivate this inter-institutional network of writers. In this web-exclusive department, we will be sharing an eclectic mix of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry from peers at other colleges. After all, why wait to discover your new favorite writer until after they’ve graduated?
—The Editors
Howdy,
Grocery Run is a hypertext poem made out of 18 original parts and eight excerpts taken from texts found around the internet. You can navigate between the different parts by clicking the links—there are hundreds of ways to read the poem.
This piece is just one part of wordways.us, a project we have been working on for two years. There are 44 hypertext pieces up so far, each experimenting with different aspects of the webpage as a visual and verbal space. They are coded using HTML, Javascript, and CSS.
Aidan Walker is a senior at Reed College. Jacob Hall is a junior at William & Mary. They both hope you are doing well and thank you for taking the time to read this.
I miss my home. The familiar sound of the trains Who lulled me to sleep. The perennial blue eyes of my best friend Who I almost fell in love with. Once.
It was never that way growing up, of course. From preschool to graduation, Dreaming on the corner of 9th and Summer, Sitting together after school, near the bus stop.
One night. After we came home from college She fell asleep After five hours of catching up She was beautiful And I wanted to kiss her. My startling love for her Expanding beyond friendship Tumbling into the soft light of her living room Strung out like a juicy secret Momentarily perennial.
But I already knew I would never be her type. Then the sound of a train Made her lashes flutter open. And I still miss her.
faint a sketch of melody perhaps, not quite skin and bones. more like powder or the tone of the sea on a cloudy morning. you can’t quite grasp it slips through your fingers and into your eyes like gold flake; a solar eclipse.
If I ran a marathon, you say, I would end up like the guy in the Greek myth. I would cross the finish line, rejoice that I’d finished, then drop dead.
You tighten your grip on the shot glass, testing its frailty, its resistance to your stress. know what’s going to happen before you do, so I ask the bartender for a towel, a couple of bandaids, rubbing alcohol, and more alcohol.
I would drop dead, you say, staring at the front door. When it rattles on its hinges, you’re so absorbed in its clatter that you don’t notice your palm as it splits across the countertop.
1968 Problem: The former vice president, and soon-to-be-crook, is leading in the polls. Solution: Allow the presidential convention to take place while a riot is happening outside, and allow the news cameras to film students being sprayed in the mouth with tear gas. Do not refute the soon-to-be-crook’s position as the “law and order candidate.”
1972 Problem: The crook is leading in the polls. Solution: Schedule the nominee, a senator best known for supporting acid, abortion, and amnesty, to give his acceptance speech at three in the morning. When the running mate is revealed to have had depression, support him with 1,000 percent certainty, then drop him.
1980 Problem: The costar of Bedtime for Bonzo is closing in on the president’s lead in the polls. Solution: Keep the president, who was only elected because of the crook, in the Rose Garden, giving speeches about economic malaise and the virtues of wearing sweaters. Appoint the president’s twelve year old daughter as his advisor on the geopolitics of nuclear weapons.
1984 Problem: The costar of She’s Working Her Way Through College is leading in the polls. Solution: Have the nominee, the vice president of the preceding, failed administration who is best known for quoting Wendy’s commercials, confess in his acceptance speech that he will raise taxes. Do not make age an issue of the campaign, while the president is 73.
1988 Problem: The vice-president of the costar of Cattle Queen of Montana is closing in in the polls. Solution: Plop the nominee, a Massachusetts governor whose hobby is writing weekend passes for convicted murderers, in a tank to appeal to veterans. Tell him to smile and point at reporters like he’s a dork trying to impress a prom queen with his performance of “Wonderwall.”
2000 Problem: The former co-owner of the Texas Rangers and the nominee are close in the polls. Solution: Train the nominee, the vice president of the current administration wracked with sex scandals, to act like a disapproving dad from a sitcom during the debates. Have him work in the word, “lockbox,” in all sixteen answers about the federal budget and Medicare reform.
2004 Problem: The misunderestimated Rangers fan and the nominee are close in the polls. Solution: Train the nominee, a Massachusetts senator who has flip-flopped on the Iraq War, to brag about his war record instead of talking about the economy. When Osama bin Laden publishes a videotape, write the nominee a speech saying nothing that the president hasn’t said.
2016 Problem: The second-best host of The Apprentice is doing well nationally.
I hide in my middleness overlookable, a noiseless witness hanging over families like a forgotten Mickey Mouse balloon
smiling though no one is paying me to I am coming home, Orlando he greets me:
a catcall from a beat-up truck snake tongue but slower
a voice that drags like a stranger’s hand on my back
I will come home to someone my man is the one who brings me hotel soap shiny and papered labeled until placeless piling on my shelf my precious
my lonesome body made clean and still alone but clean
my disaster spreading like a suburban housing development eating the land under us
spreading like the terror on his face the man next to me stiffening the air getting even staler the plane rattling between clouds his face squeezing like an orange in an invisible fist until we go down and everything stops.
Even when I’m in the dark I’m in the dark with you.
Alice Fulton
1
Like an unlucky fish plucked from the blue I imagine God tossed me for a reason a message shot straight through me so that I’d fall to the floor and pay attention
2
when I was 15 I used to dream about fainting into my Unbeknownst Beloved’s arms a plea for the fact of my existence to be suddenly made obvious I wanted helplessness sinlessness, suddenly made worth loving I thought falling was a kind of worship imagine my luck.
3
now I faint alone, dumped onto the icy tile wake up and the Dog stands over me asking why are you so graceless his scruffy visage now a tower of white light forever
Wilder Voice 